College baseball history courses?

[Honus Wagner Rules]

Do any univeristies or colleges teach a baseball history course? I seem to remember my university teaching such a course but I checked their website and there is no such course listed.

[Honus Wagner Rules]

OK I found these:

Metropolitan State Univerisity of Denver
HIS 3530-3 American Baseball History
The purpose of this course is to examine American baseball as a cultural reflection and catalyst in American life since the 1840s. Drawing on primary and secondary sources, as well as guest lectures, the course will illustrate the place of the sport within American culture.


Cornell University
252. Baseball: The American Game
The relationship of the national game to changes in the country such as industrialization, urbanization, labor unionism, and integration. (Humanities)


York College
H484 Baseball History
This course about baseball history provides a unique study of both the American historical and cultural experiences. While focusing upon the players, teams, and events that are a part of the game, the course integrates various related fields including labor history, black history and the history of American immigration. Equally important is the study of the place that baseball has come to play within American art, literature, music and architecture.


Ohio University (2 courses!)
Hist 319B- American Baseball to 1930
American baseball--as sport, entertainment, business, and cultural institution--from origins in children's games and spread as adult activity in mid-19th century to emergence as full-blown professional sport after Civil War, formation of present league structures, Black Sox scandal of 1919-20, reconstitution of baseball's governance, and Babe Ruth-dominated "golden age" of 1920s. Includes player-owner conflicts, foremost players, managers, and teams; separate development of black baseball.

Hist 319C- American Baseball since 1930
American baseball--as sport, entertainment, business, and cultural institution--From Great Depression to World War II; postwar boom, slump, and franchise migrations; major league expansion in the 1960s; player-owner conflicts; and good and bad times in the 1980s and 90s. Includes continuing evolution of the game; foremost players, managers, and teams; Negro League, and their demise; and All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (1943-54)

[Richmond Hill Phoenix]

That's really cool. I would definitley take those if I went there.

[TheJourneyman]

Texas Tech offers a distance learning course and its very good so far. I am taking it now.

http://www.depts.ttu.edu/distancelearning/ug_oescourses.aspx

Under History

HIST 3339

Course Title: The History of Baseball: A Mirror on America
Course Description: Examines the history of the national pastime with an eye to how the sport has reflected and influenced American society since the late 19th century

[catbox_9]

Why can't my school (UCLA) offer something like that?

[bailiff]

When I was in school, I took a course titled "How to be a sports Agent." It was pretty neat. We met with lawyers and agents and a few of the Houston Astros talked with us.

Oh, and yea I got an A.

[Honus Wagner Rules]

Texas Tech offers a distance learning course and its very good so far. I am taking it now.

http://www.depts.ttu.edu/distancelearning/ug_oescourses.aspx

Under History

HIST 3339

Course Title: The History of Baseball: A Mirror on America
Course Description: Examines the history of the national pastime with an eye to how the sport has reflected and influenced American society since the late 19th century

Awesome! How much is the tuition for this course?

[TheJourneyman]

Awesome! How much is the tuition for this course?

$500ish if I remember right.

[Honus Wagner Rules]

$500ish if I remember right.
What kind of coursework was incvolved? How much reading and writing of papers did you do? I'd like to take this distance class. It sounds like fun.

[TheJourneyman]

What kind of coursework was incvolved? How much reading and writing of papers did you do? I'd like to take this distance class. It sounds like fun.

Not a lot of work. Its basically read 2 chapters and then answer a few questions. There are usually 6-10 identify things (people, places, associations, etc...). Then there are 2 short essay questions to write and that's it. 10 Lessons and 1 test.

syllabus (http://www.depts.ttu.edu/ode/teks/college/hist/hist3339_syllabus.pdf)

[Brian McKenna]

Are the Ohio University classes taught by Charles Alexander?

[csh19792001]

Are the Ohio University classes taught by Charles Alexander?

Alexander apparently retired in 1999 and is now an adjunct only, but here's an article discussing his courses.

Using Baseball as a Backdrop to History
By Kelli Whitlock and Jack Jeffery

Cleats with metal spikes, uncushioned outfield walls made of cement, double headers in the heat of summer and inside pitches that laid flat any batter who dared crowd the plate. These were a few symbols of baseball during the Great Depression, conditions met head on by what one researcher says were some of the toughest players in the sport's history.

The 1930s saw the end to America's economic boom at the decade's onset and the beginning of World War II at the finish. They were tough times for the country and for baseball, argues Charles C. Alexander, author of "Breaking the Slump: Baseball in the Depression Era," published this month by Columbia University Press.

"Baseball was a tougher game in the 1930s - a tougher profession to follow and a tougher game to play on the field," said Alexander, distinguished professor emeritus of history at Ohio University. "It's a great period in baseball history, for all the difficulties the sport had."

Alexander has spent more than 40 years as a history professor and has been teaching university courses on baseball and sports history for more than 20 years. He is the author of 11 previous books, including Our Game: An American Baseball History and biographies about Ty Cobb, John McGraw and Rogers Hornsby. Alexander prides himself on being a historian who uses baseball as a backdrop. Since 1995, more than 3,000 Ohio University students have learned about baseball and American history in Alexander's classes, "American Baseball to 1930" and "American Baseball Since 1930."

"I thought it would be a challenge to do baseball in the context of the Great Depression and to see how the Depression affected baseball financially, the lives of players and organized baseball," he said.

"Ballplayers were expected to do what they had to do in those days, and that's what they did," he said. "Allowances that are made now for players were not made in the 1930s."

Alexander delivered the keynote address at the annual Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture in Cooperstown, N.Y. The symposium, which is co-sponsored by the State University of New York at Oneonta and the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, examines the impact of baseball on American culture.

"Baseball is baseball. The game has changed less and the players have changed less than is the case in any other sport," he said. "The baseball ethic still prevails: You love to play baseball, and if you're getting paid well to do what you love to do, how could it get any better than that?"

[Food]

Cal State-East Bay (formerly Cal State-Hayward, Joe Morgan's alma mater) offers a Baseball in America course in its history curriculum, but I was disappointed to find that it was really just an English course with a baseball theme. Not terribly interesting.